Highway Star · Deep Purple

258 bars at 171 BPM -- fast, and 6:02 of it without a break -- on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom, kick and hi-hat foot.

RockMetal150 BPM and upIntermediate
TEMPO
171 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
258
LENGTH
6:02
DIFFICULTY
65/100
THE BEAT

One bar, and 23% of the song

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 25-27, 29-31 and 33-35, and 20 more places -- 23.4% of every bar the kit plays. This one moves around more than most: the beat is where to start, not the whole job.

LOOP · 171 BPM
HIGHWAY STAR · BAR 27
THE BEAT, WRITTEN OUT →
THE FILLS

Where it comes off the beat

15 fills to learn, played 28 times: bars 23, 32, 36, 53, 66, 83 and 22 more.

LOOP · 171 BPM
BAR 23 · LANDS ON BAR 24
LOOP · 171 BPM
BAR 32 · LANDS ON BAR 33 · PLAYED 2 TIMES
LOOP · 171 BPM
BAR 36 · LANDS ON BAR 37 · PLAYED 2 TIMES
LOOP · 171 BPM
BAR 53 · LANDS ON BAR 54

11 more fills are written out on the fills page.

EVERY FILL, WRITTEN OUT →
THE SHAPE

How the song is built

258 bars across 18 sections: 166 keep time, 28 are fills, 39 are stops and 2 are silent. The longest unbroken stretch of time is bars 1-22.

PART A
CHORUS
CHORUS 2
PART P
CHORUS 5
PART P
PART AG
CHORUS 7
7 groovesDPJAAG+2Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest

Questions

What BPM is Highway Star?

171 BPM, in 4/4, with the time kept in sixteenth notes. At that speed the sixteenth notes are the whole difficulty, so the room will take it down to a quarter of it and climb back.

Is Highway Star hard to play on drums?

65 out of 100: demanding, mostly on the independence between the hands and the feet. The beat itself is 42 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

258 bars, about 6:02 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 49 exercises over 12 sittings, about 28 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom, kick and hi-hat foot. That is most of a full kit; the part moves around it rather than sitting in one place.

How many fills are in Highway Star?

15 fills to learn, played 28 times: bars 23, 32, 36, 53, 66, 83 and 22 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 258 BARS ANALYSED
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